Weeks
  1. State Formation
    1. Democratic Transitions

READINGS FROM HANDBOOK AND BEYOND
  • Carl Schmitt, 1932, The Concept of the Political
  • Tilly (1992) Coercion, Capital and European States AD 990 - 1992 (EVERYONE READS)
  • Downing (1992) The Military Revolution and Political Change: Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe.
  • Downing “Constitutionalism, warfare and political change in early modern Europe” Theory and Society, 17. [article] (EVERYONE READS)
  • Gorski (2003) The Disciplinary Revolution
  • Adams (1999) “Culture in Rational-Choice Theories of State Formation” [article] (EVERYONE READS)
  • Padgett and Ansell (1993) “Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400-1434” [article] (EVERYONE READS)
  • Lipset, S.M., 1960, Political Man
  • Brustein, The Logic of Evil, 1996
  • Michael Mann, Sources of Social Power, Vol. I & II, 1993, 1996
  • Thomas Ertman (1997) Birth of the Leviathan (EVERYONE READS)
  • Poggi, The Development of the Modern State, 1978
  • Julia Adams, 2005, The Familial State
  • Perry Anderson, 1974, Lineages of the Absolutist State
  • Immanuel Wallerstein (1974-1989) “The Modern World System”
  • Sewell Jr., William H., 1996, “Three temporalities: Toward an Eventful Sociology” [chapter/article] (EVERYONE READS)
  • Ronald Aminzade (1992) – “Historical sociology and time” [article] (EVERYONE READS)
  • Reinhard Bendix Kings or people: Power and the mandate to rule (1978)
  • Miguel Centeno – “Blood and debt” (1997)
  • Henrik Spruyt, 1994 The Sovereign State and its competitors
  • Douglas North “Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance” [HOLD OFF]
  • Douglas North and Barry Weingast “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in 17th century England” The Journal of Economic History, 1989. [article] (EVERYONE READS)


  1. Nationalism
    1. Globalization
  2. Ideology


  1. Revolutions
    1. Political Violence

((COMPILED FROM HANDBOOK, SOC724 SYLLABUS, AND ADDITIONAL SEARCHING OF CLASSICS. NEEDS NEWER ADDITIONS))
Marx, Karl. 1970. A contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. New York: Internal Publishers. preface.
Traugott (1985) Armies of the Poor
Marx, Class Struggles in France 1848-1850
Skocpol, 1979 States and Social Revolutions
Goodwin, Jeff, 2001. No Other Way Out. States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Burawoy 1989 “Two Methods in Search of a Science: Skocpol versus Trotsky”
Aya, Rod, 1979 “Theories of Revolution Reconsidered: Contrasting Models of Collective Violence”
Sohrabi, Nader (1995) “Historicizing Revolutions: Constitutional Revolutions in the Ottoman
Empire, Iran, and Russia, 1905-1908”
Beissinger, Mark. 2002. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Davies (1962) “Toward a Theory of Revolution”
Collins, Randall. 1993. “Maturation of the State-Centered Theory of Revolution and Ideology.” Sociological Theory 11: 117-28.
Gurr (1970) Why Men Rebel
Trotsky (1938) History of the Russian Revolution
Tilly, Charles, (1975) “Revolutions and collective violence”
Taylor, Michael, (1988), “Rationality and Revolutionary collective action”
OTHERS: Barrington Moore, Stinchecombe, Jack Goldstone, Smelser,



State theories (Marxist, etc.)
State Theories
  • Chibber, Locked in Place
  • Fred Block “The Ruling Class Does not Rule”
  • Bensel (1990) Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of State Authority in America 1859-1877
  • Miliband/Poulantzas Debate
  • Offe?
  • Therborn “What does the ruling class do when it rules?”
  • Waldner , 1999, State Building and Late Development,


  1. State Power, Elites
    1. Power & Agency
    2. State Institution
  2. Democracy, Democratic Transitions
  • David Abraham (1981) The Collapse of the Weimar Republic
  • Ivan Ermakoff, Ruling Oneself Out
    1. Political Institutions (Go back to question for guide)
      1. Regimes
    2. Citizenship
  1. Civil Society, Public Sphere, Social Capital )
  2. Political Culture and democratic politics (participation, voting, party creation, Electoral Processes)
  3. Welfare State


  1. Social Movements
    1. Rational Choice Theory, Resource Mobilization, Political opportunities& constraints.

>>IN GENERAL, GOOD IDEA TO GET A COPY OF THE BLACKWELL COMPANION FOR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS<< This is just to get us started.
PAM’S WEBSITE IS EXCELLENT RESOURCE ON THIS STUFF. LOTS OF ARTICLES ON TOP OF THESE.

  • Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, 1977, Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail.
  • Jenkins and Perrow, (1977), “Insurgency of the Powerless: Farm Worker Movements (1946-1972)”
  • McAdam, 1982, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970
  • Cohen and Arato, 1992, Chapter 10 “Social Movements and Civil Society” in Civil Society and Political Theory
  • Tarrow, Sidney, Struggling to Reform, 1983, Western Societies Program Occasional Paper No. 15, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
  • Tarrow, Sidney, 1998, Power In Movement, 2nd Edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  • Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (1965)
  • Marwell and Oliver, The Critical Mass in Collective Action (1993)
  • Pamela Oliver (1993). "Formal Models of Collective Action." Annual Review of Sociology 19: 271-300.
  • Bert Klandermans. "Mobilization and Participation." ASR 49 (Oct 1984):583-600.
  • Heckathorn, Douglas D. (1996). "The Dynamics and Dilemmas of Collective Action." American Sociological Review 61(2): 250-277.
  • Bert Klandermans and Dirk Oegema. "Potentials, Networks, Motivations and Barriers: Steps Toward Participation in Social Movements." ASR 52 (1987): 519-532.
  • Dirk Oegema and Bert Klandermans. (1994). "Why Social Movement Sympathizers Don't Participate: Erosion and Nonconversion of Support." American Sociological Review 59(5): 703-722. MS 174-189.
  • Edward Walsh and Rex Warland. "Social Movement Involvement in the Wake of a Nuclear Accident: Activists and Free Riders in the TMI Area." ASR 48 (Dec 1983): 764-780.
  • Zhao, Dingxin. "Ecologies of Social Movements: Student Mobilization during the 1989 Prodemocracy Movement in Beijing" American Journal of Sociology; 1998, 103, 6, May, 1493-1529.
  • Gould, “Multiple Networks and Mobilization in the Paris Commune, 1871” (1991)
  • Gould, Roger V., 1995, Insurgent Identities, Chicago: University of Chicago Press
  • Hechter, Michael, 1987, Principles of Group Solidarity
  • Martin, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  • Melucci, Alberto, 1989, Nomads of the Present, Philadephia: Temple
  • Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell, 1991, “Introduction” The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis
  • John McCarthy and Mayer Zald. The Trend of Social Movements in America: Professionalization and Resource Mobilization. (1973)
  • McCarthy, John D. and Mayer N. Zald, 1977, “Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory”
  • Chong, Dennis, 1991, Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement
  • David S. Meyer 2004. Annual Review of Sociology. 30: 125-45.
  • Kriesi, H. (1995). The Political Opportunity Structure of New Social Movements: Its Impact on Their Mobilization. The Politics of Social Protest: Comparative Perspectives On States and Social Movements. J. C. Jenkins and B. Klandermans. Minneapolis, MN, U of Minnesota Press: 167-198.
  • Amenta, E. and M. P. Young (1999). "Democratic States and Social Movements: Theoretical Arguments and Hypotheses." Social Problems 46(2): 153-168.
  • Raka Ray. "Women's Movements and Political Fields" Social Problems 1998.
  • Andrews, Kenneth T "The Impacts of Social Movements on the Political Process: The Civil Rights Movement and Black Electoral Politics in Mississippi". American Sociological Review; 1997, 62, 5, Oct, 800-819.
  • Meyer, D. S. and S. Staggenborg (1996). "Movements, Countermovements, and the Structure of Political Opportunity." American Journal of Sociology101(6): 1628-1660.
  • Goodwin, J. and J. M. Jasper (1999). “Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory.” Sociological Forum 14(1): 27-54.
  • Marco G. Giugni "Was It Worth the Effort? The Outcomes and Consequences of Social Movements" Annual Review of Sociology 1998


  1. Social Movements cont.
    1. Discourse, Frames, identities, repression
  • Gamson, “Goffman’s Legacy to Political Sociology” (1985)
  • Snow, Rochford, Worden, and Benford, “Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation” (1986)
  • Snow and Benford, “Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization” (1988)
  • Babb, Sarah, 1996, “’A True American System for Finance’: Frame Resonance in the US Labor Movement, 1866 to 1886”
  • Gamson, William A. And David S. Meyer, 1996,“Framing Political Opportunity
  • Snow, David A., et al., 1980, “Social Networks and Social Movements: Microstructural Approach to Differential Recruitment”
  • "Hot Movements, Cold Cognition: Thinking about Social Movements in Gendered Frames" Ferree, Myra Marx and Merrill, David A. Contemporary-Sociology; 2000, 29, 3, May, 454-462.
  • Pamela Oliver and Hank Johnston, 2000, “What a Good Idea! Ideologies and Frames in Social Movement Research”
  • David A. Snow and Robert D. Benford, 2000, Comment on Oliver and Johnston, “Clarifying the Relationship between Framing and Ideology”
  • Oliver and Johnston, 2000, Reply to Snow and Benford, “Breaking the Frame”
  • McAdam, Doug and Ronnelle Paulsen, 1993, “Specifying the Relationship between Social Ties and Activism”
  • Myra Marx Ferree __"Resonance and Radicalism:__ Feminist Framing in the Abortion Debates of the United States and Germany." American Journal of Sociology 2003, Volume 109 Number 2 (September 2003): 304–44.
  • Stephen Ellingson. "Understanding the Dialectic of Discourse and Collective Action: Public Debate and Rioting in Antebellum Cincinnati." American Journal of Sociology 101: 100-144. 1995. MS 268-280.
  • *Steinberg, M. W. (1999). “The Talk and Back Talk of Collective Action: A Dialogic Analysis of Repertoires of Discourse among Nineteenth-Century English Cotton Spinners.” American Journal of Sociology 105(3): 736-780.
  • Kane, A. E. (1997). “Theorizing Meaning Construction in Social Movements: Symbolic Structures and Interpretation during the Irish Land War, 1879-1882.” Sociological Theory 15(3, Nov): 249-276.
  • Elisabeth S. Clemens. Organizational Repertoires and Institutional Change: Women's Groups and the Transformation of U.S. Politics, 1890-1920.American Journal of Sociology 1993, 98, 4, Jan, 755-798.
  • *Morris, A. and N. Braine (2001). Social movements and oppositional consciousness. Oppositional consciousness: the subjective roots of social protest. J. Mansbridge and A. Morris. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press: 20-37.
  • McCarthy, J. D., C. McPhail, et al. (1996). "Images of Protest: Dimensions of Selection Bias in Media Coverage of Washington Demonstrations, 1982 and 1991." American Sociological Review61(3): 478-499
  • Roscigno, V. J. and W. F. Danaher (2001). "Media and Mobilization: The Case of Radio and Southern Textile Worker Insurgency, 1929 to 1934."American Sociological Review66(1): 21-48.
  • William Gamson and Andre Modigliani. 1989. "Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear power: A Constructionist Approach." American Journal of Sociology95: 1-37.
  • Mara Loveman. "High-Risk Collective Action: Defending Human Rights in Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina." American Journal of Sociology; 1998, 104, 2, Sept, 477-525.


  1. Special Topic Areas
    1. Feminist ()
    2. Race
    3. Labor
    4. Etc.


NOTE: Areas overlap. In one test, Civic Society, Political Participation and Regimes